Month: February 2021

In Chapter 7 of Sheffer’s book, the actions of the Stasi showed numerous attempts to create a network of information and surveillance, resulting in multiple failures, financial loss, and much less intelligence gathering than they’d hoped. This reflects the entirety of the Eastern German operations of retaining its citizens, but also the will with which people wanted to flee. While we’ve previously read that Action Vermin and other operations had created an environment of fear and silence within Eastern Germany, this new narrative contrasts this and how “easily” people were still able to cross the border. Despite the East German government’s attempts to positively reinforce their regime and lifestyles, it becomes clear by the end that such a tactic simply would not work.

Sheffer’s records that many of the people that worked for the Stasi simply stopped replying without consequences emphasizes the lack of power that the agency had, and the ability with which people could manipulate its systems. The tactic of trying to utilize people that had already wanted to defect or done so successfully clearly does not go well, with the government agencies realizing that they had to stick with clear force. The continued failures to maintain communication for East German intelligence meant changing tactics and adapting to their conditions, resulting in more hostile and tense actions throughout the Cold War.

As I read the book, I kept coming back to the original question of community policing – citizens were expected to and willingly spied on their neighbors, recruited to be paid for working with the Stasi, and were rewarded for their actions; was it simply monetary gain for most citizens to give intelligence, or did they believe in the regime and its ideology? While Sheffer noted that much of the information was mundane, did it provide any insight into their tactics and how to create control within communities? Were citizens aware of the high presence of Stasi affiliates, or did they just feel the eyes on them?

In chapter 7 of Burned Bridge, Sheffer not only discussed the groups of people leaving East Germany, but also the ways in which East German officials sought to keep people in the territory. As opposed to actually bettering areas of the government so people won’t want to leave, the East German officials use strategies such as glorified stalking and propaganda. The East German government would research into people’s lives to “manipulate” them to stay if they thought they were going to leave. However, this phenomena became so rampant that citizens were able to manipulate the government in order to gain benefits. In many cases these files got so out of hand that local government would give up and let people leave. Moreover, the officials used the people who had already fled as pariahs who represented selfishness. They cast the people who left as outcasts who could not thrive in East Germany due to personal issues not government issues. Sheffer states, “Whether or not people believed or sympathized with such attacks, everyone recognized such shaming as a public consequence that implicated neighbors, associates, and loved ones,” (147). Similar to the show trials, the validity of the claims being made might be clearly questionable; yet, peoples’ names are being ruined and that already does decent damage. Continually, West Germany was using propaganda to show East German refugees as brave people who escaped the evil East. Thus, all of the paranoia and propaganda makes me wonder how this works to raise tension between East and West Germany? How does this raise tension within East Germany?

In Chapter 7 of Sheffer’s book, we read how the ever increasing border measures, security protocols, and crackdowns on crossings inspired even more border activity out of fear. We also learned that in some cases, those who handled matters a bit to harshly could also frighten some individuals into crossing. However, by page 167 in Chapter 8, she highlights how East Germans who grew up after WWII, with the border seemingly always there, tended to be more tolerant of the repressive conditions seen in the East. Specifically, it is stated,

“A second generation of borderland residents, one that had been socialized and educated in divergent German states, increasingly saw life on the boundary as normal. So despite widespread dissent on the eastern side, daily activities buttressed the border regime, from patrolling to reporting transgressors. Despite widespread opprobrium on the western side, daily complacency and estrangement reinforced the divide, from border images and tourism to cross-border travel.”

This likely saw increased cooperation amongst this generation later during the Cold War, as they did not know what Germany, and by extension, Europe as well, was like prior to the conclusion of WWII and the fall of the Third Reich (as far as freedom of travel is concerned). This generation would comprise a large part of the overall human resource employed by the GDR and other Warsaw Pact nations later on in the Cold War. Those born between 1944 and 1961 would be somewhere between the ages of 28 and 45 at the time the Berlin Wall comes down in 1989, making them the key age demographic for both low level informants and officials and intermediate level administrative officials in the decades leading up to the end of the Cold War. Their childhoods had a large effect on making them different from those who came before who were more willing, and in many cases incredibly eager, to leave the East far behind. The question is how much of this was due to the propaganda, educational structure, and government policies of the GDR and how much of it was simply the fact that the division was there and many wanted to make the bet of it for themselves and their families? It is an interesting look into the role the East-West division had but in two very different ways.

In Ch. 3, pg 60, we see that many regular people are crossing to west Germany to sell products or to work. But what surprised me the most is that there was a double standard between a business owner smuggling items from the east and an easter German selling items to the west or working in west. On pg. 59, the book says” Margarete Carl from Lauscha received a deferred sentence for crossing on Nov, 1949 because she was eight months pregnants… the court issued a warrant for her arrest in East Germany in 1951, and she spent two months in Sonneberg prison” (Sheffer, 59). The West and the East were also cooperating to see that most of those from the east were convicted for theft. But when western business went to the east to buy items and smuggle it into the west there were different ramifications. On. Pg. 60 “Neustadt businessman profited from smuggling and, if caught, faced minimal repercussions” (Sheffer, 60). While it is not surprising the west turned a blind eye for the business owner, but why not convict the business owner? Also, on pg. 64 “Western firms had been smuggling Lauscha’s glass wares over the border, but smuggling Lauschaers ultimately proved more efficient” (Sheffer, 64). My question to the class is do you think there is a underlying meaning as to categorize everyone from the east as poor or delinquent? and do you think these double standards are justifiable? Or is this is a justifiable cause because the company is doing it for the sake of the company. Or are there different reasons to convict regular people and not the business owners?

While reading Burned Bridge and the re-telling of the border-centered festivals organized throughout the 1950s, the thing that struck me the most is the sheer chaos that would have come about during the mass border crossings, and the shopping rushes that residents recount. I understand the need to buy supplies, trade items, and visit friends or family, the idea that people returned (sometimes begrudgingly) and did so regularly was what surprised me. While the memory of the Cold War is predominated by the narrative that there was strict and unmoving control, this narrative shows that there was a period of semi-relaxed border patrol. While tensions remained and divisions grew, the people still had the opportunity on certain days to flood the other side in order to shop, eat, and drink.

These interactions aid in the narrative that the Cold War did not immediately settle into such a hardened and established tension that is described by many; there remained areas and borders that were open and while contested by residents and the local governments, their relations remained intact for some time. Only later in the 1950s did the borders officially close, and residents were forced to move or flee West. Until that point, both East and West Germans seemed to assimilate into this routine of border-crossing, despite the harassment and tensions that came along with it.

From this more-defined narrative given from Sheffer, I’m contemplating a few things: How does this frame the future of East-West German relations? How much did the “local participation” prevail with these interactions as Sheffer puts it, and what could they have changed, if anything?

Considering our discussions from last week and the importance of recognizable leadership for a movement, Ch. 4 “Political Skirmishing”, provides a relevant continuation. As the chapter introduces the two respective sides of East and West Germany during the Cold War, the author makes a particularly interesting claim about the degree of effect leadership had on each side. The line reads, “the leaders who emerged in both East and West Germany rendered unification less likely,” (71). Which circles me back to my first concern of how necessary or effective it really is to have a singular leader to establish a certain political ideology?

Would one side have had an advantage over the other in spreading and maintaining its ideologies if they would have chosen a more ambiguous form of leadership? Then more specifically, based off of what we know about the U.S. and the Soviet Union at this time- who had the most realistic plan of reaching a unified Germany (whether under capitalism or Soviet Union communism)? Would you argue for Adenauer’s focus for the Federal Republic on market driven expansion? The text also notes that the Federal Republic in the West aimed to integrate with other Western societies.

While keeping Germany’s somewhat recent past in mind (Nazi Germany) and its geographical proximity to the Soviet Union, was this even a reasonably possible thing to attempt? Is there any evidence to suggest this strategy actually served as a counter measure against Western Germany? In other words, was capitalism and concepts pertaining to Western society so forced upon that it actually turned people away instead. Or on the other hand, at least for practicality and realism’s sake, did East Germany and Ulbricht have the superior approach? Even though ethically it is more than questionable, could you see the use of political repression and the formation of the MfS to be more well suited in this case?

Oppositely then, do you find it ironic or paradoxical at all that the East attempted to establish a five year centralized economic plan based off of Stalin’s ideology of “socialism in one country” within divided Germany? Or did it even matter in the long run? Then in closing, how did each sides’ approach to policing the divide directly influence respectively their broader political agendas? Relative to the amount of actual soldier or guard presence and the type of or degree of forced used in maintaining the separation. Lastly, how can we see as historians the idea of the “German question” being applied to the U.S. or other nations presently? Is it all fair to say that the U.S. and the Soviet Union viewed East and West Germany as some form of large scale political experiment? If so, I believe this opens up a whole new conversation about the past and present foreign policies of the U.S. government.

In chapter four of the reading Sheffer discusses the 1949 soccer match between Sonneberg and Neustadt. As an event that crosses the East and West boarder, it seems like a huge event that displays how badly these two sides want to be unified. Yet, Sheffer quickly shows the reader that this successful event is not all it seems to be. Although Easterners and Westerners were allowed to cross the boarder on the day of the match, and they did so in hoards, that hoard was heavy with Eastern Germans. She states, “And third, interest was lopsided between East and West. Westerners accounted for less than a fifth of spectators at the game. Only four hundred to five hundred Neustadters ventured into the Soviet zone after the boarder opened, compared to the tens of thousands of Easterners headed West, “(Sheffer, 73). Continually, the same Eastern excitement followed through with the officials who organized the event, as they took the lead and the Western officials treated the match as a headache. In fact it seems as though the Eastern officials purposely timed these boarder crossing events as a way to undermine the newly formed West Germany. However, while the Eastern officials sought to use these events as propaganda to promote German unification there is something about this that gives me pause. These events saw thousands of Eastern Germans crossing the boarder, but not the same number of Western Germans. So, doesn’t that fact make the East look bad? Or, am I missing a piece of the puzzle?

I thought it was interesting that, in chapter three of this book, we learn about the fact that there were (for lack of a better term) “civil trials” for those who were caught smuggling across the border. They make mention that these smugglers were not bringing things such as drugs, weaponry, etc., but rather toys. What was the reason as to why they held these people on trial? Do you think it was to make a show over the fact that they care even about this small of smuggling?

Kovaly’s recollections offer insight into Czechoslovakian society in the early Cold War. The experiences shared by her and her husband Rudolf demonstrate the fear felt by party members as they tried to avoid arrest. Kovaly describes how “No one dared speak out loud, and hardly a week passed without news of someone’s arrest.” and how doorbells would turn people pale on certain evenings. (Kovaly, 101) Those living in Czechoslovakia were ruled by fear and the ideology of the party and any dissent from the party was seen as ideological impurity. Kovaly describes two instances of critical remarks about Soviet propaganda being taken as heinous ideological crimes. In the first instance described by Kovaly, a woman describes a propaganda film as “another grade-B operetta” and this remark is taken as a “fit of temporary insanity” and is forced to correct her “erroneous” views on the film. (Kovaly 98) The second example Kovaly describes is her own comment that was directed at a propaganda poster. She refers to a poster featuring Stalin as “unbelievable kitsch” and the man showing her the poster reacts by accusing her of wanting “another war” and being a “reactionary.” (Kovaly, 99) These examples demonstrate the rigid ideological purity that was required at this point in the Cold War in Czechoslovakia.

In what ways were other countries affected by the same kind of paranoia and ideological tests of purity? How does ideology control people to the extent that it does during this period of the Cold War?